The “Kneeling Woman” celebrates her 100th birthday

In 1911 the German sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck created his unique “Kneeling Woman” in Paris. The graceful woman immediately began to travel: to the Sonderbund exhibition at Cologne in 1912, to the New York Armory Show in 1913. This major piece of sculpture had has an amazingly influential affect ever since. It is “the” work of art between Fin de Siècle and Expressionism, “the” figure between the 19th and 20th century, a central symbol of modernism. The complex and varied history of this motif in the sculpture and drawing of its day is traced by this lavishly illustrated catalogue.
Paris 1912: the Duisburg artist produced this key example of 20th–century sculpture in the energy field between Rodin, Brancusi, Cézanne, Matisse and Duchamp. The publication simultaneously documents the colourful bohemian life of Paris in the early 20th century between the Café du Dome and the Sale 41 at the Salon des Indépendantes, where Wilhelm Lehmbruck and other important artists of the time met to exchange ideas.

• A unique German sculpture
• Comprehensive history of a Motif
• Parisian art and culture around 1912

Raimund Stecker (born 1957) is an art historian, critic and curator. He studied art history at Bochum, Hamburg and Florence. For over seven years he was director of the Kunstverein Düsseldorf. From August 2000 to early 2006 he was director of the Arp-Museum, Bahnhof Rolandseck, at Remagen. This was followed by a professorship at the Kunstakademie Münster. He has headed the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg since September 2009.

Marion Bornscheuer (born 1973) is an art historian and curator. From 2005 to 2007 she worked as a research trainee at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. She subsequently freelanced at the Grafik-Kabinett Backnang and had a teaching post at the institute for art history at Stuttgart University. Since 2008 she has been curator of the painting, prints and photography collection of Lehmbruck Museum Foundation at Duisburg.

Exhibition: 24 September 2011 to 22 January 2012 at the Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg